Worth: A Star Wars Story (ON TEMP HIATUS)

12. A Return to Normalcy

"Thank you for your help, boys," Ros nodded to us as we loaded all of our supplies onto the retrofitted transport that Seku and her mates had fixed up for us. "You ever need our help, just call."

"We will. Thanks, Ros."

I glanced over to see Talen and Orar exchanging holo frequencies, prompting Kote to give a chuckle. "Looks like your vod'ika and my vod'ika made friends."

I couldn't help but chuckle as I watched them, too. They were just kids at the end of the day, regardless of how confusing their situations must have been. I turned back in time to see Wylan walk up to me, his sharp face its usual impassive mask of calm. "What is it, old man?" I asked, crossing my arms as he wordlessly held out something to me. I took it from him and was surprised by the heft of the small bar he had passed to me. The grey metal swirled with patterns of different colors, waves bending over the ingot's flat surface that caught the light as I turned it over in my palm. "Uh, what am I looking at?"

"In Clan Ordo, when someone has completed a task of value to the clan, it is customary for us to give the user an ingot of beskar as payment," Wylan nodded his head at me as I caught Ros snap his head to him, eyebrows rasiing in surprise. "You helped me avenge my nephew, and gave my tal'vod peace. That's worth one little ingot of beskar."

"I can't take this," I tired handing it back, but Wylan crossed his arms in response. Beskar was valuable. Really valuable. It was one of the strongest metals out there, durable and surprisingly light when molded into the beskar'gam that the Mandalorians wore. It was priceless, and holding a chunk in my hands made it feel like I was holding something sacred. Only Mandalorians knew how to work it, craft it, and wear it, and now a small chunk of it was mine.

"Bendo's life is worth a lot more than that little thing to me," Wylan gestured to the ingot in my hand with his chin. "Keep it. I always level my debts."

"Wy..." Ros started to say something, but Wylan rolled his eyes and gave a snarling grunt.

"Enough. I gave him the ingot. That's the end of it."

Before I could even protest, he gave a dismissive wave of his ahnd and stalked away past the other Beroyas, who took his leaving as a chance to come up and say their goodbyes to me and the squad. I watched Bev and Kade make their way over to Tor as Tracyn and Grek exchanged a friendly headbutt with their helmets on, the sound of hardened plasteel smacking hard into beskar prompting Orar and Talen to look up worriedly as Red burst into a peal of laughter beside Grek, who shook his head hard as I heard Tracyn giggle darkly. Kote approached me and held out an arm, "Pleasure working with you and your boys, Cap. Think we'll see one another again?"

We seized one another's forearms as I extended my arm out, too. "I hope not," I chuckled as Kote barked out one quick laugh and yanked me into a one armed hug, our hands still locked around one another's forearms.

"That's what I like to hear, vod."

As we released one another, I saw Kothe walk up and give Talen a friendly punch to the front of his shoulder, "Keep those boys safe, kid. We'll be in touch."

As the Mandos all waved their final goodbyes, I saw Seku wander up to Talen, and the moment they laid eyes on one another, he ran to her and gave her the biggest hug I had ever seen him give anyone. I didn't really think that Jedi were supposed to act like that, but Talen was surprising me continuously. Seku returned the hug, wrapping her arms tightly around him as I swore she was blinking away tears from her eyes. "Ma'allesh, little one. Thank you for everything."

"Ma'allesh, Seku. When you come to Coruscant, can I come and visit you?" The two stepped away and I saw Talen looking up at her with his big akk puppy eyes, and I saw her smile down at him.